William David Ball, Jr.

William D. Ball, Junior, was born in Los Angeles, California on 15 January 1922. His father, William Senior, wrote magazine articles, short stories, and photoplays; he later published a writing manual (“Fundamentals of Creative Writing”) and edited a periodical titled “Writers’ Markets and Methods.” The income was enough to buy a home in fashionable Laurel Canyon. As children, “Bill” and his sister Martha only had to walk down the street to catch a glimpse of Harry Houdini’s estate; their school, Fairfax High, was situated in West Hollywood.

At Fairfax, Bill caught the eye of Josephine Duckett. They dated in school, and when Bill graduated in 1939, the relationship was serious enough to continue while “Jo Lu” finished her studies. She would eventually graduate with the class of 1941.

Bill Ball hit the ground running after high school. By 1940, he was renting his own place in San Pedro – 1438 South Pacific Avenue – and working as a car wash attendant. He met some mechanics at A&H Body Works just down the block and was soon hired on as a mechanic’s helper. Bill worked in the body shop for eighteen months, until the day he turned twenty – the same day he joined the Marines.

With permission from his parents and a clean record from the LAPD, Bill Ball joined the regular Marine Corps on 15 January 1942. Immediately after completing boot camp at San Diego, he was assigned to duty with Company B, First Battalion, 2nd Marines at Camp Elliott.

Ball made a good impression on his company officers; in July, he was promoted to Private First Class. The very next month, he experienced his first combat on Tulagi in the British Solomon Islands. From August 1942 to January 1943, PFC Ball and his buddies saw heavy and desperate fighting on Tulagi and Guadalcanal before being pulled back to New Zealand for rest and recuperation.

While Ball avoided serious injury in the Solomons, he had a healthy fear of crippling wounds – especially losing a limb. Before going overseas, he told his parents “not to expect him back if he ever lost an arm or leg.” Jo Lu heard the same declaration “most emphatically.” Seeing the harsh reality of combat wounds only seemed to deepen Bill’s resolve. He told a fellow NCO, Leroy Pinske, that “he would never come back [home] if he were crippled or maimed in battle.”

For a time, Ball was able to put his fears out of his mind. His regiment trained hard in New Zealand, and Ball had the added responsibility of new rank – promotions to Corporal in May of 1943, and Sergeant in August. With the extra stripes came extra pay to spend on liberty in Wellington. And at every mail call he had a stack of letters from Jo Lu, who wrote faithfully every night.

In October 1943, Sergeant Ball boarded a transport and sailed from New Zealand bound for his next test of combat – Operation GALVANIC, or the invasion of Tarawa.

On 20 November 1943, the First Battalion 2nd Marines was placed in floating reserve. They were to land on order and support their sister battalions, which were spearheading the attack on a pair of beaches codenamed Red One and Red Two. The assault waves took such heavy casualties that by 1030 hours the reserve battalion was called up to assist.

The vehicles carrying Baker Company were targeted by punishingly heavy fire. Several were disabled, and the Marines had to wade ashore through the surf. As Sergeants Ball and Pinske jumped over the side of their stranded boat, a Japanese bullet struck Ball in the left forearm. Bill Ball had to keep moving forward – there was no alternative – and managed to reach the temporary cover of the sea wall. While painful, the wound was not debilitating.

The two sergeants rallied as many men as they could find, and began searching for a path inland. Over the top seemed the only option, and they gamely climbed over the sea wall. Within moments, a Japanese machine gun dropped several Marines. Pinske was hit in the knee; as he fell, he saw Bill Ball take a bullet that shattered his left scapula.

What happened to Sergeant Ball after this second wound can only be speculated. All known casualty reports initially claimed that he was “transferred to an unknown destination for treatment and disposition.” At Betio, the nearest medical facilities were aboard the transport ships, and it seemed likely that Ball wound up in a sick bay afloat. (One record names the “USS J. Franklin Bell” as the destination, but the source of this information is not clear and Ball never arrived aboard.) From there, it was supposed that Ball was taken to Hawaii for more serious medical treatment and reassignment, and his service records were duly updated.

Exactly how this happened is a mystery. A possible explanation could be that the sheer number of casualties suffered in the Tarawa operation led to rubber-stamping paperwork, with overworked clerks simply copying information without verification. The truth of the matter is that Bill Ball never made it to Hawaii. He never reached a transport for treatment. In fact, it appears that Ball never made it off Betio alive.

A telegram announcing Bill’s combat wound arrived at the Ball residence in December 1943. His parents immediately sent get well wishes, and Jo Lu kept up her nightly correspondence. Weeks turned into months, and they received no replies. Bill’s mother, Martha, was in poor health and the strain of not knowing took a heavy toll. Jo Lu wrote to the Marine Corps on Martha’s behalf, and learned the extent of Bill’s wounds. Bill’s earlier declaration – don’t expect me home if I’m crippled in the war – increased their worries tenfold.

“It is four months now since Sgt. Ball was wounded,” wrote William Senior in March 1944, “and we are extremely worried because we have not heard from him and cannot find out where he is.”

“I write a letter to him every night,” said Jo Lu, “and in the four months since he has been wounded we have had no word at all….”

In May 1944, the Department of the Navy finally realized that Bill Ball was not present in any known medical facility. Martha Ball received a disquieting telegram: “due to complete absence of information concerning your son’s present whereabouts, his name has been transferred to the missing in action list.” Finally, on 21 November 1944, Sergeant William D. Ball Junior was officially declared dead.

Just four days later, the Balls received a visit from one of Bill’s buddies. Platoon Sergeant Leory Pinske, now stationed in Oceanside, related the story of landing on Tarawa and how Bill Ball was wounded in the arm. Pinske “believed Bill had lost an arm from his wounds and for that reason had hidden his identity and did not intend to come home,” recalled Martha Ball. The Marine seemed nervous during the visit, which did not sit well with Martha. “Little things said during his short visit, together with reluctance to have anything further to do with us, led us to believe he knew more than he was telling,” she continued. “He refused to answer or even acknowledge invitations or letters we sent to him after his visit.”

Meanwhile, Jo Lu received a letter from another of Bill’s buddies which related that Pinske had a letter from Bill in his possession. Since Pinske refused to communicate, Jo Lu and Martha (Bill’s sister) traveled to Camp Pendleton and confronted Pinske.

“Sgt. Pinske admitted he had received a letter from Bill, written for him by someone else,” related mother Martha. “The letter was postmarked Los Angeles and was received by Sgt. Pinske in March, 1944…. Pinske was vague about the contents of the letter, except that Bill had said ‘The last time you saw me I was in bad shape, but I’m in worse shape now.’ Sgt. Pinkse suggested the possibility of Bill’s having lost both arms.”

Consternation and confusion over this letter would last through 1946. The Balls finally resorted to requesting a formal statement from Leroy Pinske via Marine Corps Headquarters; Pinske at last admitted that he had only presumed the letter was from Ball – it was written in a female hand, and only signed “Your pal Bill.”

Jo Lu finally accepted Bill’s death – or at least the reality that he was never coming back to her. She married George Mew, a discharged Marine veteran, in June of 1946; they settled in Van Nuys and raised a family.

William and Martha had one final tragedy to endure – the announcement that Bill’s body was non-recoverable. Even after American remains were exhumed and returned to the United States, they had no way of knowing their son’s ultimate fate.

As the 604th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company exhumed the site of Betio’s “Cemetery 33” in 1946, they uncovered dozens of remains that bore no easy means of identification. These bodies were buried as unknowns in the Lone Palm Cemetery prior to shipment to a laboratory in Hawaii for more advanced analysis.

One of these bodies, designated “Betio X-89,” was examined by anthropologists in June 1948. Skilled technologists were able to estimate his height, weight, and age; they took dental charts, and noted that the left arm was missing. However, they were unable to reach a definitive conclusion about the identity, and in 1949 “X-89” was buried in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (Plot E, Grave 522) as an unknown.

In 2015 a government directive led to the exhumation of the Betio unknowns. Using modern technology, including chest radiographs, dental analysis, and circumstantial evidence, X-89 was officially identified as Sergeant William David Ball, Jr.

CENOTAPHS
Honolulu Memorial, Tablets of the Missing

FINAL BURIAL
Bakersfield National Cemetery